"I think we realized intellectually that the odds of saving him were lower than eating him because we're asking people to proactively change their minds and save him," said MSCHF co-founder Kevin Wiesner, "but now it's heart-wrenching."

The art world is typically accustomed to shock art, but "Our Cow Angus" is stirring up polarizing debates among collectors and on social forums at a level not seen since British artist Damien Hirst displayed rotting cow heads as art in the 1990s. Animal-rights activists are decrying MSCHF's life-or-death project as a barbaric stunt while museum curators hail it as a relevant critique of consumer dissonance about beef at a time when ground-beef prices are skyrocketing amid a long-running cattle shortage on American pastures.

Within hours of launching the "Our Cow Angus" site in 2024, Angus had effectively sold out, slated to become 400 three-packs of hamburger patties for $35 each and four leather handbags for $1,200 each. (Four burger tokens are on offer for around $233 each on reselling site StockX.)

Wiesner said he and the other 20-odd MSCHF members hadn't realized how brutal the impending death of Angus would feel after watching him mature on a meat-production farm in upstate New York. No one in MSCHF can even stomach ordering a burger right now, Wiesner said.